


Speech-Acts

by CaraLee



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Language/Accent Geekery, Really All This Is is One Long Headcannon Ramble, The Significance of Speech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 07:53:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9428336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaraLee/pseuds/CaraLee
Summary: People are defined by how they talk. The Wayne Family is no exception.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ferith12](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferith12/gifts).



> Ferith12 and I were talking about this ages ago. So its all her fault.

Brucie Wayne’s voice is almost shrill despite how deep it is. Filled with the sing-song staccato of the Gotham elite, long vowels cut off sharp, just a hint of what lies beneath the gilded surface of the city, sophistication over the grit and grime.

Batman speaks in a growl that many have described as gargling gravel. His accent is ambiguous, not from the streets but not from the ballrooms either. Still unmistakably Gotham, wrapped in shadow and darkness.

Bruce doesn’t talk much, but when he does it is somewhere in between the two. A natural baritone of drawling syllables. Clean and clear. (Except when he tries to speak anything but English. No matter what language it is or how well he understands it and can speak it, his accent is _atrocious._ )

 ***

Richard Grayson starts out speaking faltering English with a thick, undefinable accent that sometimes sounds like Brazil and sometimes like Russia and sometimes a little like Florida and only occasionally anything even vaguely approaching Gotham. The accent fades eventually, but never fully disappears.

Dick-as-Robin sounds like he could be from anywhere. His intonations are the blandest, most unidentifiable American you could imagine. His words aren’t always real and his expressions come from the world over, all delivered in a voice that could be from New York City or Los Angeles or Bismark or Dallas or Salt Lake City. His laugh sends shivers down many a spine.

Dick Grayson really doesn’t sound much different from Richard. His accent isn’t quite so thick at the beginning and fades not at all. His sentences are sprinkled with words that aren’t quite right and his smile is small and brightly warm. Dick only talks off-stage, when there are no masks to be worn and no performances to be given. This used to be often. Now it is rare and treasured.

Officer Grayson sounds like he came straight from the Blüdhaven docks. Amy thinks at first that he must be a plant for the _Bratva_. The Romani-Russia-Croatia-Romania in his words isn’t thick but it is distinct and he sounds like the immigrant he is. Officer Grayson sounds just like Dick and Richard, just narrowed and focused on the way his _familia_ used to speak among themselves. And if occasionally the Eastern Europe slips just a little and lets something else in, it’s alright.

Nightwing, no matter what city he is in or who he is with, never sounds like anything but the Blüdhaven street-corners. Broken, drawled, rushed English in a tripping, lilting European tilt that can’t quite be pinned down. It might be France, it might be Belgium, it might even be Turkey or Greece. His words come where they aren't expected, swift and inescapable as his escrima. In Gotham, in Jump, it marks him, sets him apart. In Blüdhaven, it blends into the shadows and brings him in as one of them.

Dick-as-Batman growls, but it is just a touch lighter than Bruce-as-Batman, not higher but lighter, a little less weighed down by the shadows of the past. The accent is pure Gotham. Not a single indication of anything else; no past, no future.

***

Little Jason Todd has a mumbled street brogue that is thick and harsh and nearly impossible to understand. His words are strong and generously littered with obscenities and colorful expressions that have Alfred bringing out the soap more than once and the occasional turn of phrase that could have come straight from classic literature. Beneath the slang and honest Gotham filth his voice is warm and rich with a hint of a rasp even then from the cigarettes.

Jason-as-Robin has cleaner language but his accent changes only a little, true to where he comes from and where he goes. He speaks to the kids on the street and the victims and civilians as if he is one of them. Because he is and he never forgets it.

Jason teaches himself to speak well. He listens to Alfred and he reads more books than he had ever dreamed existed and he throws himself at clear pronunciation and diction with the same single-minded determination he focuses on everything. Bruce has done so much for him, the very least he can do is take the opportunity to learn to speak the way his mom always wished he could. Like he came from somewhere and had somewhere to go. Prospects. A future. Because he does now, and those stuck-up witches in the society circles can just shut up about the "ignorant little street rat."

Red Hood still sounds like Gotham but there is an edge to his words, crisp and sharp that hints of elsewhere. After they learn who he is and where he came from it is almost too easy to identify the subtle influence of the sing-song speech of the Shadows.

Jason Todd and Red Hood speak the same; sharp and angry and bitter with words that wound deeper than bullets.

***

Tim Drake’s accent is absolutely horrendous. It’s as if someone took the thickest elements of Jersey and blended them with the most nasal of Gotham’s society affectations. He sounds like a half-awake Brucie and drunk Jason combined. The first time Kon hears him speak with his own voice he laughs so hard he falls of the roof and crushes one of Ma Kent's rose bushes. (The stutter doesn't help.)

Tim-as-Robin speaks clear and calm, only a hint of Gotham in his diction and accent, the product of hours of being drilled by Alfred.

Red Robin sounds like Tim-as-Robin with just a hint of Tim Drake; slight intonations and expressions with an occasional underlying Shadows lilt.

Timothy Drake-Wayne sounds clean and “educated”. You would never know he is from Gotham or that he is technically a teenage high-school drop out. That is rather the point. The heir of two fortunes wields words as his weapon, his deadly insight more dangerous than his bo. 

(Tim running on no sleep and way too many cups of coffee is completely unintelligible.)

***

Cassandra-as-Batgirl doesn’t usually speak but when she does she mimics Tim and makes Alfred cringe.

Cassandra Wayne speaks softly and deliberately, an accent there that no one can quite describe. She is precise, nothing wasted, not word or motion.

She likes Sign Language more than English. It is Tim who suggests it but Dick who teaches her, shows her how to make the shapes and gestures that go beyond words into meaning. It is a language that is more like dancing than speaking and she smiles when she sweeps her hands around and back together, her fingers saying everything that such a simple word as _"family"_ cannot even begin to contain.

Black Bat sounds like Hong Kong.

 ***

Damian al Ghul speaks like an Arabian Prince from a period drama; A hint of Shadow giving a soft edge to crisp, British vowels. The arrogance and condescension he portrays comes through very clearly in those intonations.

Damian-as-Robin sound perfectly Gotham. Like Bruce-as-Batman he is not quite from the streets and not quite from the middle-class and not quite from Society. He just is.

Damian Wayne has a softer manner of speech than Damian al Ghul. Less sharp and more welcoming. Occasional words and inflections borrowed from his not-brothers.

Damian Wayne sounds like his family.


End file.
